


our greatest gifts have become our demise

by Solanaceae



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, Darkest Night 2018, F/F, Infinity War Thanos Snap Style Event
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 08:45:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16059608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solanaceae/pseuds/Solanaceae
Summary: After Voldemort's victory, Hermione is a prisoner of the Death Eaters - until Pansy releases her, under the condition that Hermione help her.





	our greatest gifts have become our demise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy! I haven't written in this fandom for _ages_.

It was near midnight when Hermione heard the sound of the first key turning in the lock. She stopped moving—she’d been trying in vain to work circulation back into her wrists, chained above her head—and listened. The click of a deadbolt being drawn back. Another.

Light flooded into the room, throwing the long shadow of the person in the doorway across the concrete floor. Hermione kept her head down, stubbornly avoiding having to squint at the backlit figure.

“Granger.”

The unwelcome familiarity of the voice made her tense.

Pansy Parkinson left the door ajar and crouched down in front of her. Hermione lifted her gaze. The other girl wore all black, making her pale skin look nearly sickly, and there were deep, bruised shadows under her eyes. Pansy’s brow furrowed as she looked Hermione up and down in return.

“Shit, Granger, they messed you up, didn’t they?” she muttered, voice so soft Hermione wondered if she was meant to hear her.

She knew what she looked like—far too thin, dressed in what amounted to rags, skin scarred with fresh wounds layered over half-healed scars. Her tongue darted out over her lips, wetting them enough for her to get the words out. “Parkinson. What’re you doing here?”

“Getting you out.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean?” Pansy said, voice cross. “Can’t you just say _thanks_?”

“Don’t tell me you’re turning traitor and rescuing me out of the goodness of your heart.”

For a moment, their gazes locked. Pansy looked frightened under her feigned irritation, Hermione realized—not of her, surely, but of _something_. After a brief moment, Pansy’s resolve crumbled.

“Fine,” she muttered. “I need your help.”

The absurdity of that statement made Hermione laugh—sharp and savage, but still the first laugh she had let out in a long time. “How am _I_ supposed to help you?”

“It’s about the Dark Lord.” She tore her eyes away, hand going to her pocket. Hermione tensed, but Pansy only drew out a set of keys.

“What about him?”

“He’s got a new thing, a new _spell_ , something he’s spent the past few months coming up with.” Pansy’s dark eyes fixed on a point somewhere above Hermione’s head. “He’s got that—that wand, and he’s going to use it to cast some massive spell.”

Curiosity pricked at the back of Hermione’s throat, the words bubbling up— “What kind of spell?”

“I don’t know,” Pansy said a little too quickly. For the first time in a long time, Hermione felt like she had the upper hand, no matter how slight. She lifted her chin, waiting until Pansy met her eyes.

“If you want my assistance,” she said coolly, “you’d better begin by telling the truth.”

“Can it wait? I don’t have much time before the sleeping potion wears off on Yaxley.”

“You know what it is, and you’re afraid, so it must be something that kills indiscriminately,” she guessed. “Or has the potential to. And you’re _terrified_.”

Anger sparked in Pansy’s eyes. “Yeah. Whatever. I don’t want to die, get it? I bet you don’t want to either. You’re the last one left, the others are all dead—”

“Keep talking like that and I won’t be helping you with anything,” Hermione said, voice icy to hide the way the reminder of Harry and Ron’s deaths made her want to clench her fists and scream until her throat was hoarse.

To her surprise, Pansy nodded. Whatever this weapon was, it had scared the girl badly. But Pansy had always been preoccupied with self-preservation, had always been a coward. Hermione was a woman, had been forged into one by the crucible of war, but Pansy was still soft at the edges, and the fear in her eyes was that of a child’s.

(A memory, fleeting: a lone voice crying out in the Great Hall, _Potter's there! Someone grab him!,_ the fear and panic behind it. The disgust and anger she had felt at Pansy’s attempted betrayal. She mustn’t forget that.)

“Fine,” she said. Pansy’s eyes widened.

“You’ll help me?”

“I just _said_ I would,” she snapped, exasperated. She moved her wrists, making the chains clank. “Now get me out of these.”

Pansy fumbled a key off the keyring, this one small and silver. The bindings, like the door, were magically warded to set off an alarm if someone tried to use a spell to unlock them, so Pansy must have stolen the key from one of the Death Eaters. As soon as the shackle clicked open from her right wrist, Hermione tried to move—and instantly regretted it, as pain shot through her muscles, sore from being held in the same position for days on end. She gritted her teeth, forcing herself to slowly stretch through the twinges of agony.

Pansy ignored her involuntary grimace of pain, instead unlocking her other wrist and standing up. She didn’t bother to hide her impatience as Hermione pushed to her feet, every joint in her body protesting.

“We need to leave.”

“I’m aware. I don’t suppose you managed to get my wand?”

Pansy snorted. “I’m getting you out, okay? That’s enough.”

How exactly Pansy expected her to help without a wand was beyond Hermione, but it wasn’t like she had much left to lose. They were going to kill her sooner or later; she would prefer to go down at least attempting to fight back.

Pansy led her out the cell, past a snoring Yaxley slumped in a chair by the door. Hermione felt the urge to spit at him as she passed—memories of weeks of being tortured by him and other Death Eaters rose—but she resisted it.

After the last battle, when Harry had walked into the Forbidden Forest and come back dead, truly dead, Hermione had been one of the _privileged_ few who were taken prisoner rather than killed outright. There had been others, at one point, but they had either died or been taken elsewhere. She was the only one left here.

 _Here_ being the dungeons of her last haven. Hogwarts had been torn apart by the war, and she noted that no one had bothered to repair it beyond clearing rubble out of the hallways enough to walk through. She followed Pansy up the stairs, skirting a massive hole blown into them by some spell, and out into the Great Hall.

She kept her eyes down, but still caught glimpses: the scars across the sky of a ceiling, the matchstick-splintered tables, the blood still dried across stone in places. Pansy seemed uncomfortable, too, but that could just be the fact that she was sneaking a prisoner out from under the Death Eaters’ noses.

They made it to the entrance of the school, and something in Hermione’s chest jolted at the sight of the doors hanging off their hinges like great slain beasts. Unbidden, the memory of her first year rose: walking into Hogwarts for the first time and placing a tattered hat on her head and being part of something bigger and older than her.

“This is too easy,” she muttered.

Pansy shot her a sharp look. “Quiet.”

“It’s too _easy_ ,” she pressed, but lowered her voice.

“What d’you mean?”

“Where are all the Death Eaters? Aren’t there guards?” She gestured at the ruins. “Shouldn’t someone be stopping us? Unless you slipped a sleeping potion into everyone’s drinks at dinner.”

Pansy shook her head. “No one cares about Hogwarts. The Dark Lord has moved on to greater things. They just weren’t moving you because they thought you might find a way to break free if they tried to take you someplace else. I had to come all the way up here to—” She cut herself off with a frown. “Look, we still need to keep moving.”

They exited the castle, circling around the lake. The moon was a waning crescent, but the night was clear enough that it cast its silver light across the rippling water. The absurd thought struck Hermione that she hoped the Death Eaters had at least left the giant squid alive.

Once they were far enough away, Pansy held out her hand. “Side-Along,” she said by way of explanation. “We’re going to my house.”

Hermione raised an eyebrow. “Is that wise?”

“My father is part of the Ministry now and spends all his time in London, and my mother is away for three weeks visiting her sick brother in Sheffield. We can lay low for at least a few days.”

Another moment of hesitation, and then Hermione took Pansy’s hand. Pansy spun, and the world went dark and suffocating.

***

Pansy’s house was exactly what Hermione would have expected: a towering mansion with white marble pillars that seemed to gleam in the moonlight as they walked up the path that wound through a lush but perfectly kept garden. Hermione purposefully crushed a few flowers under her shoes as she followed Pansy. 

The entrance hall was dark until Pansy muttered a few words under her breath and flicked her wand. The lamps flared, bathing the tiled floor in golden light and revealing the rich mahogany furniture. Another flick, and the curtains swished shut, blocking out the view of the moonlit garden.

“Okay,” Pansy said, pocketing her wand and turning to Hermione. “It’s safe to talk now.”

“I’d prefer it if I could eat something first,” Hermione said frostily. “They haven’t really been feeding me, you know.”

“Cabdy!” Pansy yelled, turning towards what Hermione assumed was the kitchen. A male half-elf dressed only in a dish towel loincloth poked his head around the doorway, wide eyes darting from Pansy to Hermione, who was still standing near the front door.

“Yes, Miss Pansy?” Cabdy asked, tone subservient.

It really should not have been such a surprise, but Hermione supposed she had forgotten about luxuries like twenty four hour service by house elves. She watched Pansy give orders with the careless air of one who had been doing this her entire life, and wondered. (She supposed S.P.E.W. would have fared about as well as she was now, in this new world.)

Eventually, Cabdy brought her a plate of roast beef sandwiches, and her attention shifted to focusing on not swallowing them whole in her hunger. She and Pansy sat at one end of a wide dining room table that stretched into the shadows at the other end of the room—Pansy had only lit a single candle on their end, which gave the whole situation a strangely intimate air.

“Look, Granger,” Pansy said after Hermione had worked her way through her first sandwich and was starting on her second. “I know we don’t get along.”

That was an understatement. “We don’t have to. Just tell me what you need, and then I’ll be on my way.” Already, she felt stronger than she had in weeks. And speaking of— “What’s today’s date?” she added.

“July twenty-second.”

Almost three months, then, since the battle. (And nine days until the day that would have been Harry’s eighteenth birthday.) She forced down the surge of grief that rose at that thought and said, “Tell me what the situation is.”

Pansy gave her a summary: following the battle at Hogwarts, Voldemort had systematically hunted down and killed every member of the Order he could find, then had declared himself Minister of Magic, throwing aside the pretense and figurehead Pius Thicknesse. The entire country was on lockdown for wizards, with magical travel in and out prohibited. The Muggle government was in chaos, struggling to deal with the near-daily murders and unexplained explosions. Voldemort had not violated the Statute of Secrecy and revealed himself to the Muggles—not yet.

“He’ll do that soon, though,” Pansy said. It seemed she had covered up her fear quickly enough, now that they were far away from the Death Eaters, because she spoke confidently and quickly, leaning forward across the table. “Draco says he’s thinking about the international magical community. Some of the other countries are in favor of dropping the law, others aren’t.”

“Do you know which ones have taken which side?”

“Of course not, Granger, I couldn’t even tell you all of the countries involved.”

Before seeing all her friends killed, before being tortured for weeks, Hermione might have held her tongue. Now, though, she spat the words out, letting the venom drip from them. “You do _understand_ , Parkinson, that we need to know what’s going on if we don’t want to get caught. I don’t believe even you are so idiotic as to not know the major world wizarding powers.”

“Fuck off,” Pansy snarled. Her hand twitched, as though she wanted to reach for her wand. Hermione closed her hand around the butter knife—a pathetic defense, if Pansy meant to curse her, but it was all she had. For a moment, they glared at each other across the table, until Pansy relented with a sigh, sitting back in her chair.

“It doesn’t matter, anyways,” she muttered. “The Dark Lord is planning on doing something to get them all to side with him.”

“The spell,” Hermione guessed, not letting go of the knife.

Pansy nodded.

“What does it do?”

“Draco says that the Dark Lord is planning on killing all of his enemies with one spell. He claims he’s almost ready, and once he’s warded Britain off, he’ll set loose the spell and it’ll find all his enemies and destroy them.”

“Why do you care?” Hermione asked bluntly. “ You wouldn’t die. Or you wouldn’t have, before you broke me out.”

“Because I don’t think that it’ll just kill his enemies!” Pansy snapped. “I think, and from what Draco’s told me, I’m not the only one, I think that it’ll end up killing people at random.”

“So you’re worried you’ll die.”

“I don’t know what kind of—of altruism you were expecting from me, Granger. I thought I was pretty clear.”

Hermione was mildly surprised that Pansy knew a word like _altruism_ , but rather unsurprised that she was incapable of it. “What makes you think it’ll kill people randomly?”

“When I was six years old,” Pansy said slowly, and to Hermione’s surprise a faint flush of embarrassment crawled across Pansy’s cheeks as she spoke. “Mum took me to a Seer. It’s kind of a family custom, and usually it’s just a tea leaf reading about when you’ll get married or whatever. But he went all—all weird, like his voice got raspy and his eyes went blank. He told me that _half the world will die_ , and that I would know that it was going to happen _after the burning of the North Tower at the height of spring_. So I’ve been on the lookout for whatever he might’ve meant, and I think this is it.”

A beat of silence, during which Pansy glared at Hermione as though Hermione had forced her to confess something terrible. Then Hermione cleared her throat and said, “Let me get this straight. You’re basing this entirely off of the words of some Seer because you think the future can actually be told with any kind of accuracy?”

“Did you see, during the fight? The North Tower got set on fire.”

“Even assuming—there are probably dozens, _hundreds_ of North Towers in the world. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Well, I believe it does,” Pansy said sharply. “And if you can’t help me, then I’ll find someone else who can.”

It was likely an empty threat. Still, Hermione felt a flare of irritation at the _can’t_ , as though Pansy thought she was incapable of something like this. “What do you expect me to do?”

“Figure out how to stop the Dark Lord. So neither of us have to die.”

“When does he plan on doing this?”

“Sometime next week. We don’t have long.”

“Sometime next—Parkinson, I can’t work miracles,” Hermione said, exasperated. “I can try to find out more about this spell, maybe there are books somewhere that can help—” A thought struck her. “All the books we need would’ve been in the Hogwarts library. Why didn’t we stop by there?”

“It’s all been wrecked,” Pansy replied. “They gave away the books to people.”

Hermione’s eyebrows shot up. “They ransacked the _library_?” she said incredulously, not quite managing to keep the horror from her voice. Pansy shot her a look laced with contempt.

“Yeah, who cares?”

“Don’t be thick, Parkinson. We care, because we need those books.”

Pansy rolled her eyes, but said, “The Malfoys ended up with the really old ones. Draco was talking about how the Dark Lord trusts them with important books again.”

“Then we need to get in there somehow.”

“I can get into Malfoy Manor.” Pansy waved her hand dismissively. “It won’t be hard at all. They’ve got no reason to suspect me.”

“How are you going to get me in?”

“What d’you mean, get you in?”

Hermione resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I don’t trust you to know what we need. Besides, you might need to distract them to let me get to the books.”

“Fine. We’ll think something up.”

“Fine.”

A moment of tense silence. Pansy hesitated, then stuck her hand out. “Don’t fuck me over, Granger.”

Hermione shook Pansy’s hand. “Likewise.”

***

Before they went to bed, Pansy put a silver bracelet around Hermione’s wrist with a chain looped through it that led to the bedpost. “So you don’t run away,” she explained, tapping her wand to the bracelet and muttering something. It shivered, going cold against Hermione’s skin for a second.

“Is this really necessary? I won’t run away.” _I don’t have anywhere to run to_ , she didn’t add.

“Can’t risk it.” Pansy climbed into her bed and the lights went out.

The blankets Pansy had spread on the floor for her were thick and luxuriously fluffy, a welcome change from the hard stone of the dungeon she’d been kept in. Still, even after she had curled up in her soft nest, Hermione had a hard time falling asleep.

A spell that could kill half the world… 

It wasn’t that she doubted that there was a spell that powerful—theories allowed for such things, most of the limits of magic related to creation or alteration rather than destruction, which was comparatively simple. Nor did she doubt that Voldemort was evil enough to use it. What made her wonder was the fact that Pansy seemed to be the only one who thought it would backfire on the Death Eaters. Did Voldemort have them so enthralled that they did not even think to question his assurances?

Or maybe it was only that Pansy was the only non-Death Eater privy to such information, thanks to her bond with Draco. Pansy was not too stupid to be a Death Eater (the presence of Crabbe and Goyle senior among their ranks proved that), nor did she harbor sympathies towards undesirables like blood traitors and Muggle-born, but Hermione suspected that Voldemort knew better than to entrust such a coward with anything important. After all, the first person she had turned to had been _Hermione_.

 _Because everyone else is dead_ , a voice whispered in the back of her mind. _Harry and Ron and all the rest, they all died. Why shouldn’t you join them?_

She bit her fist to stifle a sob and struggled to control her breathing. On the bed above her, Pansy let out a soft snore.

No. Thinking about that was pointless. There was still a war to be fought, even if Voldemort thought it was over.

She lay awake, listening to Pansy breathe and turning plans over and over in her head. If she kept busy, if she kept moving, she wouldn’t have to think about—well, _anything_ except putting one foot in front of the other.

***

The next morning dawned with late-July heat that hung oppressively over the garden as Pansy and Hermione passed through it. Hermione uncorked a vial, drank the contents. In the end, they had decided to pass Hermione off as a distant relative of Pansy’s named Claudia—an actual person who looked nothing at all like the Muggle girl whose hair they had added to the Polyjuice Potion, but also an actual person who none of the Malfoys had ever met. Pansy’s job was to act as normal as possible; Hermione’s was to keep her mouth shut and pretend to be as stupid as possible. She wasn’t sure this was entirely necessary (and rather suspected that Pansy was having a laugh at her expense), but was willing to play along if it got her inside.

Because despite the fact that mere hours ago, she had been a hopeless prisoner in the bowels of Hogwarts, despite the fact that the girl at her side was the last person she would have expected to ally with, it felt almost good to have a problem to work on again, to have something she could reason into submission. Research, reading ancient books—that’s what she was _good_ at. 

Pansy grabbed her arm. Another suffocating, dark twisting of the world, and when everything snapped back into place, Malfoy Manor loomed down the road.

“Are you ready?” Pansy muttered as they approached the wrought iron gates.

Hermione nodded.

“Remember, act daft,” Pansy added.

When they reached the gates, Pansy did not hesitate before knocking, a confident smile on her face. Five seconds of silence. Ten. A minute. The smile slipped slowly from Pansy’s face as the time ticked past.

“ _I can get into Malfoy Manor, it won’t be hard at all,_ ” Hermione muttered under her breath, adding a mocking note to Pansy’s earlier words. “This is going well.”

“Shut the hell up.”

The gates unlocked with a sudden clang that made Pansy jump, then slid open smoothly. Pansy shot Hermione a look that seemed to say _told you so_ , then started towards the doors to the manor.

***

Inside, Narcissa Malfoy greeted them with a smile—the first time Hermione could recall seeing the pale woman with that expression. Pansy introduced her as _Claudia, my cousin_ , and Hermione kept a smile on her face through sheer force of will. It took everything she had to not let her hands shake. This place, the memories that came with it—Bellatrix and her flashing silver knives, the searing pain and heart-stopping terror, Dobby’s death—

“Draco isn’t in, I’m afraid,” Narcissa said, leading them across the foyer. “Can I offer you anything—tea?”

“Tea would be lovely,” Pansy simpered. Hermione bit her tongue and nodded.

They sat, and Narcissa and Pansy drank tea while Hermione kept her eyes down and stirred the sugar bowl with the dainty silver spoon. It wasn’t logical, but part of her was afraid to meet Narcissa’s gaze, certain that she would be recognized even through the disguise.

After a few minutes, Pansy kicked her under the table. Hermione kicked her back, then stood, muttering something about the bathroom. Narcissa directed her down the hall.

As soon as she closed the door behind her, she set off at a quick pace towards the wide stairs that led to the next floor. She found the library where Pansy said it would be, a wide, wood-paneled room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Pushing open the door, she felt a twinge of sorrow in her chest as she instinctively compared this library with a far more familiar one; she recalled long hours studying in the Hogwarts library, whispering to Harry and Ron, sneaking in under the Invisibility Cloak to the Restricted Section. This was much smaller, of course. It was easy enough to locate the books she was looking for—old, placed on a low shelf in the corner so as to be inconspicuous.

She pulled out the first one and flipped through the pages, scanning the text as quickly as she could. Before long, there were several books stacked next to her, and her head was a comfortable whirl of words and theories.

She was so wrapped up in reading that she did not register the sound of someone scampering up the stairs until Pansy burst through the door and headed straight for her. Hermione nearly dropped the book she was holding in surprise.

“She’s coming,” Pansy hissed, eyes alight with panic. She grabbed the book from Hermione’s hands and unceremoniously slammed it back into place on the shelf. “We need to get out of here, she can’t suspect—”

“Wait.” Hermione cast about, frantic, as Pansy shoved the books back into the bookcase. “I’m not done.”

Her eyes landed on a thin leather-bound book she had previously overlooked. The binding looked hand-woven and ancient. Narcissa’s footsteps, approaching, pausing outside the door. Hermione grabbed the book and shoved it into the waistband of her pants, pulling her shirt down over it.

“Pansy? Claudia?” Narcissa’s head appeared around the doorway. “There you are. What happened?”

“I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Malfoy, it’s just that Claudia has this terrible habit of wandering off.” Pansy clapped her hand on Hermione’s shoulder, fingers digging in painfully. Hermione pasted her best idiotic smile on her face, keenly aware of the corner of the book where it pressed against her back.

“Do be more considerate,” Narcissa chided Hermione gently, ushering them both out of the library. 

***

“I cannot believe that fucking _worked_ ,” Pansy said gleefully once they had Apparated back to her house. “You’re as smart as they say, Granger.”

“We can’t celebrate yet,” Hermione warned. “I could only take one book. And they’re bound to notice it’s missing eventually.”

“Still.” Pansy was practically vibrating with joy. She threw a careless arm around Hermione’s shoulder. Hermione flinched at the sudden contact, but Pansy did not seem to notice, already dragging her into the living room and calling for Cabdy to bring them something to drink.

***

Half an hour later, firewhiskey a pleasantly distracting burn in the back of her throat, Hermione sat in a stiff-backed armchair with Pansy a meter away, watching her leaf through their prize.

The book turned out to be a journal of some sort, written in an elegant, flowing hand. From the spelling, Hermione surmised it was written several centuries ago. That it had survived this long meant it must be magical—and indeed, running her fingers down the spine, she discovered a faint sensation, like static electricity building up under her skin.

“Are you copping a feel from that book, Granger?” Pansy said, and there was a disarmingly playful note to her voice. It seemed that the alcohol had loosened her up. “Hate to interrupt and all, but we do need to read that.”

“I hardly need you to remind me of that,” Hermione shot back, but had to suppress a smile. Pansy’s satisfaction was contagious.

She bent her head and set to the task of deciphering the ancient handwriting.

Nearly four hours later, she closed the book with a snap. Pansy, who had been snoring softly in the chair next to Hermione for the past half hour, startled awake. “Find anything?” she asked, looking hopeful.

Hermione nodded, worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth. Pansy frowned.

“It’s bad, huh?”

“This is Morgan le Fay’s journal,” Hermione said, holding it up. When Pansy stared at her blankly, she added, “You know, the famous dark witch.”

“I thought she was just a story.”

“Well, she might be—but whoever wrote this claims to be her, and claims to have developed the framework for a spell that can, ah, _turne to ash halfe th’worlde_. ” Hermione swallowed. “And the theoretical work behind it—it’s definitely possible that the spell can actually do that.”

“Does it say that there’s a counterspell or something?”

Hermione shook her head.

“Literally _anything_?”

“If it helps at all, it’s unlikely that You-Know-Who will be able to contain it. Your prophecy’s probably going to come true.” She slumped back in the chair, rubbing at her temples, where a headache was steadily building. “And it’ll get him what he wants, too—the attention of the international magic community, I mean. They’ll have to take him seriously after he kills that many people.”

Pansy considered this, jaw set obstinately. “Well, what’re we going to do about it?”

Hermione regarded her with faint astonishment. “You don’t mean to say that you want to take on him and all the Death Eaters single-handedly, do you?”

“ _Not_ single-handedly. I’ve got you.”

Hermione’s mouth actually hung open for a moment while she processed that. When had Pansy Parkinson gone from hating her guts to putting all her faith in her abilities? A terrible thought struck her— “You don’t _fancy_ me, do you?” she blurted out.

Pansy’s face went a blotchy red. “Bloody hell, Granger, where’d you get that idea? Not everyone is falling over themselves to get to you. I just don’t want to die. You’re the best way to avoid that.”

It wasn’t a no. Hermione considered pointing that out, but thought better of it. Pansy’s excuse— _it’s just self-preservation, it doesn’t mean anything_ —was sounding flimsier and flimsier the longer she thought about it.

She cleared her throat. “Right. Just making sure.” 

Pansy narrowed her eyes, but said, “Come up with something. I’m not taking my chances and letting him cast the spell.”

Hermione’s grasp on the leather-bound journal tightened. _Coward_ , she thought, then wondered why she was blaming Pansy for wanting to stay alive. Maybe it was only that she had become so unfamiliar with the feeling.

“Let’s sleep,” she suggested. “We can look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow morning.”

***

She fell asleep almost the moment her head hit the pillow, and she surfaced from the darkness to searing pain.

Her own blood, slicking the floor under her as she shook with pain. The merciless glitter of the chandelier high above her. Bellatrix’s knife dug into her shoulder, tracing the outline of her collarbone towards the center of her chest. A scream tore at her throat, but when she opened her mouth, no sound came out. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, could barely breathe.

Someone was laughing, harsh and cruel, and she watched the blade descend toward her throat in slow motion, the silver glinting in the light—

She woke screaming, thrashing her way free of the blankets that entangled her.

“What the hell?” Pansy sat up, fumbling for her wand. The lights flared to brightness, and for a moment Hermione was disoriented, thought she was still trapped in her dream, in that terrible room with the knives and the blood and—

It took her a moment to realize that Pansy was kneeling in front of her and that her hands were on Hermione’s shoulders, gripping tight. Her breath came fast, tearing at her throat in quick, half-sobbing gasps. Her heartbeat roared in her ears.

“—okay,” Pansy was saying. “It’s okay, you’re fine.”

A needle of irritation pierced through the fog of panic. She shrugged off Pansy’s hands, forcing her breath to slow. It was harder than she expected. “Of course I’m fine,” she managed to force out eventually.

“Granger, you were _screaming_.”

“Bad dreams,” Hermione said coldly. “Sorry to wake you. It’s nothing.”

Pansy looked angry. “Don’t be a twit. What’s wrong?”

“Why do you care? When have you ever cared?” Anger was good; anger was hot and sharp and cleared her mind. “You’re just worried about me because I’m useful to you.”

“Why are you—who are you angry at? Me?”

 _You, for treating me like a friend. Every bloody person in this world who failed at fighting against Voldemort. Myself for letting you see my weakness._ She bit back every answer that rose to her tongue, instead spat out, “You’re not loyal to anyone but yourself, are you?”

“That’s all I can _afford_ to be loyal to!” Pansy protested. “I can’t depend on anyone else, not even Draco.” She reached for Hermione’s shoulder, but seemed to think better of it when Hermione glared at her. Pansy’s face hardened. “Fine. If it makes you feel better. I don’t want a nutter on my hands.”

“Fine. I’ll try not to wake you next time.”

Pansy opened her mouth as though to say something, then closed it. Jaw set, she clambered back into bed, flicking the lights out with a sharp wand movement.

***

Early the next week, after a tense few days during which Hermione kept herself busy reading Morgan le Fay’s journal while Pansy alternated between worried hovering and affronted sulking, they went to London.

Voldemort was not in the Ministry building itself—which was lucky, because that would have been nearly impossible to break into. From what Pansy had learned from stray comments made by Draco, he was doing his preparation for casting the spell on a lower floor of St. Mungo’s, which he had more or less taken over.

“I think he’s using sick people as test subjects,” Pansy had told her, and Hermione had felt a sudden wave of nausea as she thought about Neville’s parents on the fourth floor of the hospital.

The plan was simple enough: Hermione would drape a cloth over her face and pretend to be afflicted with something terrible (they had no more Polyjuice Potion, but hopefully no one would examine her too closely). Pansy would pretend to be bringing her in for treatment.

“This can’t possibly go wrong,” Hermione muttered as they approached the derilect department store.

“Shut up.”

They entered the hospital through the window. The waiting room was just as Hermione remembered it, except far emptier—there were only three other patients sitting in the wooden chairs, and the atmosphere was subdued.

“What seems to be the problem?” a bored-looking wizard with a clipboard asked.

“It’s my cousin,” Pansy said, and launched into a rapid-fire explanation that involved a lot of gesticulating. Hermione kept the thin grey veil over her face. The wizard listened, looking more and more overwhelmed under Pansy’s verbal onslaught.

Surreptitiously, Hermione snuck a look at the other patients: a witch with what looked like a third arm protruding from her back, two wizards in bright robes who were muttering to each other. Her heart lurched as she noticed a black-robed figure by the doors leading to the rest of the ground floor—not someone that she recognized, but very clearly a Death Eater.

“—and so I brought her straight here,” Pansy finished.

The wizard nodded. “You’ll want Artefact Accidents I… suppose. Straight ahead through the doors and ask for any of the Healers. Do you need an escort?”

“No,” Pansy said brightly, already steering Hermione by her elbow towards the door. “Come on, Claudia, let’s get your face fixed.”

Hermione let Pansy drag her, trying to figure out what to do if the Death Eater saw through the disguise, recognized her—leap out the window, maybe, or grab the Healer’s clipboard and use it as a weapon—

“Hello,” Pansy simpered at the Death Eater. He looked down at her, narrowed his eyes.

“Who are you?” he grunted.

“Oh, you probably don’t recognize me, I’m Pansy Parkinson. This is my cousin, she’s got these _terrible_ things on her face and she’s too shy to show it.”

“You’re Paxtyn Parkinson’s daughter?”

“That’s me.” Pansy’s grin was sickeningly sweet. “Excuse us, she’s really got to see a Healer.”

“Sure.” The Death Eater stepped aside and let them pass. As soon as the doors closed behind them, Hermione let the cloth drop. There was a gleam of satisfaction in Pansy’s eyes.

“Good, huh?”

“You’re lucky no one’s seen how suspicious you’ve been acting, or that would’ve set off some kind of alarm,” Hermione pointed out.

Pansy frowned. “Whatever. It worked. Can we get moving?”

Immediately to their right was an inconspicuous set of doors leading to a stairwell that went both up and down. After making sure the hall was clear, they ducked into the stairwell and headed down, past the signs that read _Authorized Personnel Only_ .

The basement of St. Mungo’s consisted of a long hallway with a cold, impersonal tiled floor that stretched down to a set of double doors.

“Where do you suppose he is?” Pansy whispered.

Hermione shrugged. “We should check every room. How good are you at casting Disillusionment Charms?”

“Not great,” Pansy confessed.

“We’ll just have to risk going without them, then.” _Unless you want to give me your wand_ , she thought, but they had argued about that enough times that she knew it was useless.

Footsteps echoed down the hall, coming from behind the door at the end. Pansy’s eyes widened. “Shit. We need to hide,” she said.

Hermione cast around, but there was nothing in the hallway but a single gurney, not nearly big enough to hide behind. Her gaze settled on a grate set low in the wall that looked barely large enough to fit through.

“In there,” she hissed.

Pansy pointed her wand at it, and the bolts holding it down fell out with faint clinks. Pansy caught the grate as it fell, keeping it from clanging to the floor.

Hermione dove into the duct, squirming her way back behind the wall. Pansy followed, sliding the grate back into place and muttering under her breath, sending the screws flying back into their places. The door opened, and the two girls held their breath as a set of booted feet passed by the grate and down the hall. Another door slammed shut. Silence.

“Let’s go,” Hermione said, and started crawling without looking to see if Pansy followed.

After a long few minutes of making their way through the ventilation system, Hermione’s arms and legs ached from dragging herself along the narrow passages. They reached a spot where the vent opened up into a wider space: still just barely tall enough for Hermione to move without her head brushing the ceiling, but enough to let her stretch her arms out a bit more. She was just starting to pull herself over a grate that looked down into the room below when she heard a familiar voice.

Voldemort’s voice.

After a moment of heart-stopping fear, she forced herself to look through the gaps in the grate. Pansy joined her to peer through as well, which involved some silent maneuvering that ended with Pansy half-lying on top of Hermione, their bodies uncomfortably close in the hot, still air of the vent.

The man visible in the room below was dressed in Auror robes and looked rather worse for the wear—robes dingy, a bruise blooming across his cheek, the mark of a boot outlined clearly in dirt against his pale face. He was strapped into a chair by several metal bands that ran across his chest, arms, and legs. Hermione did not recognize him.

“The effect of this spell,” Voldemort was saying in his high, cold voice, “has taken some work to perfect. This is the final step before I cast it across all of Britain. You should be honored to be part of such a great work.”

The Auror spat at him.

“Very well,” Voldemort said, and raised the wand. He began to speak, harsh syllables emerging from his mouth, and Hermione pressed her face closer to the grate, trying to crane her neck to see him. Morgan le Fay’s journal had spoken of a language older than Latin, one spoken in Ancient Mesopotamia, that carried a terrible, ancient weight when used in spells.

Voldemort fell quiet. For a moment, nothing. Then the Auror’s brow furrowed, his muscles straining as he fought against the metal bands. Beside her, Pansy sucked in a horrified gasp as the man’s legs began to dissolve into grey ash that swirled away in an invisible wind. The effect crept up his body, eating away at his thighs, torso, shoulders. He opened his mouth to scream moments before his head collapsed into ash, dissipating.

“That will do,” Voldemort said to the empty room, then strode through the settling cloud of ash that had moments before been a living, breathing person.

The moment the door closed behind him, Hermione unlatched the grate and scrambled out, landing in a crouch on the floor. Pansy followed, face pale.

“Shit,” she said eloquently.

Hermione nodded, running her fingers through the grey dust. “He’s ready to cast the spell for real now.”

“What the fuck do we do?”

“We have to kill him, or get the wand away from him. The first is basically impossible—” Unless they could get to Nagini and kill her, but Voldemort had seemingly hidden his snake and only remaining Horcrux away. Besides, Hermione _really_ did not feel like explaining the concept of Horcruxes to someone as thick as Pansy. “So we have to go for the wand. It’s the only one powerful enough to cast a spell like that.”

“Then let’s go.” Pansy started for the door.

After a last glance at the remains of the Auror scattered across the floor, Hermione followed.

***

They continued through the hospital’s lower level, no longer moving through the ventilation in the interest of speed. Besides, there did not seem to be anyone else in the halls—no Healers, no patients, not even any Death Eaters. They checked every room they passed, but it was still a surprise when Hermione opened a door and found herself face to face with Voldemort.

For a split second, Voldemort’s eyes widened. Pansy pointed her wand at him, crying, “ _Stupi—_ ”

Her wand flew from her hand as Voldemort disarmed her with a careless flick. Almost at the same time, ropes sprayed from his wand tip, wrapping around Hermione’s wrists and pulling her arms to her sides.

“Hermione Granger,” he said, a note of something like curiosity in his voice. “I see you escaped.”

“I see you’re still a mass murderer,” Hermione snapped. 

Voldemort flicked his wand again, and Hermione felt her voice stifled in her throat. He stepped back into the room, and Hermione felt herself being pulled in as well. 

“And Pansy Parkinson,” he mused, looking Pansy up and down. “I shall _certainly_ have to have a word with your father.”

Pansy was shaking with fear. She shook her head mutely, and Hermione felt despair tightening her throat along with the Silencing Charm. 

“Well,” Voldemort murmured, tucking his wand into his belt, “This has all been very amusing, but I’m afraid I’ll have to call someone in to put you two where you belong.”

“It’s not going to work,” Pansy blurted out.

Voldemort paused, tilted his head to one side. “What do you mean?”

“The spell,” Pansy said. She took a step forward. “It’s going to kill half of the world, it’s not just going to kill your enemies.” 

“And how do you know that?” Voldemort’s voice was dangerously soft, and Hermione wanted to yell for Pansy to stop talking, but Pansy continued to speak, looking increasingly panicked.

“The journal, Morgan le Fay’s journal, you must’ve gotten it from there so you must know it’ll kill randomly—” Pansy’s eyes widened, and Hermione exhaled. So it seemed Pansy had reached the same conclusion she had, _finally_. “You know it’s going to do that,” Pansy whispered, voice horrified. 

“Of course I do. I’m not a fool,” Voldemort said coldly. “You, however, are.”

A knife appeared in Pansy’s grasp and she lashed out with it, catching Voldemort in the side of his wrist, opening a small cut that welled up red. Voldemort snarled, taking a step back, and Pansy lunged at him again. This time, Voldemort dodged it easily. His pale hand flashed out, reaching for his wand, and met only empty air. He spun, hissing with anger, looking—

The wand was in Pansy’s hands.

Pansy pointed it at his chest, taking several steps back, out of his reach, and stood there, breathing hard. For a moment, Voldemort’s eyes widened fractionally. Then a grin split his face, the cold lack of emotion in it an eerie sight.

Hermione bit her tongue hard, the copper tang of blood filling her mouth. _Shit_. This was bad.

“Well, well, well. _Pansy_ ,” Voldemort murmured, lingering on her name. “How uncharacteristically bold of you.” He laughed, triumph clear in his voice. “What will you do? Will you kill me?” He spread his arms tauntingly. “Do it, then.”

Hermione watched as the gravity of the situation seemed to hit Pansy, her face growing pale. _Just do it_ , she thought, willing Pansy to hear her, _just kill him, it’s the only thing to do._

Pansy’s hands were trembling, but she kept the wand leveled at him. “Let us go,” she said, a quaver in her voice.

 _Kill him,_ Hermione wanted to shout, but the Silencing Charm still held.

“Let you go?” Voldemort repeated with a cold smile. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. Use that wand to kill me, or hand it over. I may let you live.”

There were tears spilling over Pansy’s cheeks, fear brightening her eyes. Hermione sagged back against her ropes, suddenly seeing crystal clear how this would go. Pansy—not brave or smart or loyal, just everything nature and nurture had made her—would hand the wand over in return for her life, and doom half the world.

They had failed.

“Make a choice,” Voldemort snarled. He took a step forward, claw-like hand reaching forward.

Pansy let out a wordless sob and brought the wand down over her knee.

A blinding flash of light and a concussive blast of force. Hermione screamed, and something hit the wall with a loud thud.

When the dancing spots cleared from Hermione’s vision, she saw Pansy slumped against the far wall, blood trickling down her forehead, eyes closed. Even as Hermione struggled against her ropes, trying to crawl to Pansy, Voldemort stood in a swirl of black robes, flicking dust off his sleeve.

He tilted his head to one side, regarding Hermione coldly, then bent to pick up the wand—whole, unbroken—from where it had fallen from Pansy’s hands. Without another glance at Hermione or the unconscious Pansy, he turned and swept out the door.

The ropes around Hermione fell slack the moment the door slammed shut, the lock sliding home with a click. She scrambled across the room and threw herself to her knees at Pansy’s side, feeling desperately for a heartbeat. There—the faint pulse of life in her wrist.

“Pansy?” she whispered.

Pansy’s eyes fluttered open, focusing on Hermione’s face after a few seconds. She tried to sit up; Hermione gently pushed her back down.

“Don’t move. You’re probably injured internally.”

Pansy frowned, but let Hermione ease her back against the wall. “Is it…?”

Hermione considered lying for a split second, then shook her head.

“So it didn’t work,” Pansy whispered. “Shit—Hermione, I’m so sorry—”

“It’s okay,” Hermione said. “It’s okay, we did everything we could. You did everything you could.” Without thinking, she leaned forward and kissed Pansy. The other girl’s lips were warm and chapped.

When she pulled back, Pansy’s eyes were bright with wetness. “You didn’t have to do that,” she whispered.

“What does it matter, now?”

Pansy’s face crumpled, her tears spilling over her cheeks. Hermione hesitated for a moment, then took the other girl in her arms, embracing her, letting Pansy sob into her shoulder. Her own eyes were dry—if this was the end, she had been ready for it for months.

She closed her eyes. Pansy’s breath was warm against her cheek, the frantic thrum of her heartbeat vibrating under her fingers.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the feeling began to dissolve into grey.


End file.
